Will Proton make a debut in the World Rally Championship for the 2010 season? Apparently this is a possibility, and Proton is actually working at making this happen, according to Proton director Datuk Haji Abdul Razak Dawood. He says a successful WRC program could establish Proton’s brand and reputation in Europe the same way it helped Subaru in the 90s.

According to Datuk Haji, a Proton Satria Neo in the WRC could possibly turn it into a cult car with a following like what Subaru enjoyed with the WRX. If the proposed WRC regulation revisions to a “S2000+ spec” becomes official, it would allow Proton to compete in the WRC with a much smaller budget and compete against the big boys like Ford and Citroen. All that needs to be done is to upgrade the existing MEM Satria Neo S2000 (shown above) to whatever the S2000+ spec is.

2003 World Champion Petter Solberg is said to be in talks with Proton for a 2010 season. He will be testing the MEM Satria Neo S2000 car sometime in February, and according to him the Proton is a nice and detailed car. He says he has met with Proton but nothing about the proposed 2010 season has been finalised yet. There is also word about Solberg racing in a Citroen C4 instead, but he says that deal has not been finalised yet either.

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.

its a great idea, and would definitely boost protons international branding. something like this would be a huge undertaking, for any manufacturer.. but then again.. its only talks at this stage (but still exciting news).. petter solberg i’m sure, has been talking with anyone and everyone to secure a drive for the future.

Sure hope it materializes. Since Pert n Karam left the scene there’s no one to fly our flag. With the right upgradings the Neo could be a very potent machine. Anyone seen a Proton Wira 1.8DOHC with Shell’s decals around? That car with little mods done, won its class overall in our MRC Perlis round in 1999. N Karamjit Singh aka The Flying Sikh, certainly needs no introduction here. A right car with the right driver will put us back on track. I heard that Karam is to be roped back by Pert to drive a rebadged Evo X for Asia Pacific Rally Championship. Peter Solberg for WRC? Keeping my fingers crossed on both.

proton must be doing very good internationally to afford this. even subaru with a cash rich parent like toyota cant afford them from a business prospective. also taking into consideration subaru IS Rally racing.

as much as i would like to see solberg in a proton. i dont want to see him in one at the expense of the well being of malaysians. same case as that astronaut. nobody in the world gives a damn if he’s been to space he basically was just given a free ticket. cant beleive this sheet going on. business is ailing, malaysians suffering and they go on and try recruit a world class driver into an expensive program in the worse economic period/situation in a century.

to be honest. i hope they lose badly. just like petronas in F1 all the time.

On second thought, WHY Peter Solberg,(no offence meant) n not our very own Karam? He has been waiting so long to compete full-fledgedly in the WRC, n now that Proton can afford it (previously cited financial prob) why oh why not Karam who had served the country n flew the Jalur Gemilang single-handedly? After all he’s still our national champion. Wages? PS will definitely be expensive but Karam? I think just the chance to compete in WRC will be enuff for Karam. Maybe a token sum n a Datukship thrown in? N talking of Datukship, why hasn’t he been awarded one yet for all his sacrifices? Same goes to his co-driver Allen Oh.

proton must be doing very good internationally to afford this. even subaru with a cash rich parent like toyota cant afford them from a business prospective. also taking into consideration subaru IS Rally racing.
——————————————

a WRC rally budget is very much higher than a budget to run an S2000 car.. which is why FIA is proposing for S2000 to be the new WRCar standard in 2010 to keep costs down.. This seems the norm now, as even F1 is desperately trying to lower costs.

in comparison, an S2000 car ready to race costs around RM1million, whereas a WRC car will be in the region of RM7million. The S2000 car is also simpler, and easier to maintain, and doesn’t have some of the more expensive gadgets like active-diffs, etc.

“to be honest. i hope they lose badly. just like petronas in F1 all the time”

Wow…what a proud Malaysian…

Oh…I forgot, losers love losers…

I don’t get it, they moan all the time that Proton should expand and get overseas exposure instead of relying on the local market. I think Proton is trying to do that with all the recent export news and this I believe is a good way to gain exposure. What else is there? WTCC is also expensive. Anyway with the new regs the cost of WRC is much lower (common parts for example).
But when Proton tries to get exposure it’s all negative…

Anyway it’s not a done deal, Proton will only go into WRC if the numbers add up.

interestingly enough, if you were to do a search on foreign websites.. the news about the proton s2000, has been remarkably positive. many are surprised and certainly did not expect this from proton.

most interestingly of course, is that petter solberg is interested enough to meet with proton to talk about it. He has of course gone to talk to other manufacturers, but the fact that he has seen, and recognises protons efforts. i’m sure a driver of his calibre would not meet proton if he did not believe he can be competitive in the car.

anyways, with or without petter solberg, niall mcshaw, pwrc 04 champion will be starting with the neo s2000 in the 1st round of WRC’s 2009 season in ireland next weekend.

good luck to proton if they are really serious. WRC programme should be a lot lot cheaper with S2000 spec. Petronas should be asked and forced (if necessary) to chip in too. Make it a national project, sort of. with Petronas name slapped on the car, as let say, one of the main sponsor, international recognition and everyone acceptance is much easier, as Petronas already been associated with BMW and F1.

finding good driver isn’t hard. there are aplenty around w/out job (e.g. the subaru and suzuki drivers). finding exceptional drivers is the real deal, more so for a new team w/out any sort of pedigree in WRC. P Solberg is a coup. even Atkinson is a coup.

but need to compete its s2000 in as much as possible rally in 2009 to gain experience etc. be it IRC or European rally. if not, proton might end up being massacre in every WRC rally, which then only bring humilation to themselves, associates and the country.

for me, if proton could do what suzuki achieved in it’s short stint in WRC is great enuff. a top 5 position in any rally is a huge success.

I will not expect proton to challenge manufacturer such as Peugeot or Fiat that have gained many IRC rally wins with their own S2000 unit (if they decided to enter WRC in 2010) ..

to fight head-to-head with Citroens or Fords (if they have their S2000+ ready by 2010, which they don’t have right now – if not mistaken) is only a dream. that too big an asking, really. the best proton could hope and aim for in its first few years is to be the top 2nd tier team. that is more than enough to make everyone to pay serious attention.

but since most manufacturer would start with rather a clean slate with S2000/S2000+ spec, proton chances should be a little bit brighter, who knows.

“most interestingly of course, is that petter solberg is interested enough to meet with proton to talk about it. He has of course gone to talk to other manufacturers, but the fact that he has seen, and recognises protons efforts. i’m sure a driver of his calibre would not meet proton if he did not believe he can be competitive in the car.”
___________________________________________

Not 100% true.
Petter Solberg is currently unemployed, and with few teams looking to come into participate in WRC, he does not have many options.
Also, there is very little chance of Petter winning WRC as again, Sebastian Loeb is looking strong.

He’ll most likely drive for almost any team that can meet his salary demands….

proton is doing terrible in overseas market. if they are serious in making it big then there is only a few markets that they need to penetrate and thus havent done and has not much hope of doing so in the near future. no matter what type of positive exposure u seem to think they have, its not enough because product line up is terrible and nobody was buying proton even when the times were good. that is a fact that you dont hear about. besides, the competition is just too good there is no way you would buy proton unless you were forced or conned into buying one.

they problably dont care about beleiving in proton. they just there for the money even though they understand they wont win. if he didnt care about money and just wanted to win then he would sign up with other teams even if it meant a big pay check cut.

Not 100% true.
Petter Solberg is currently unemployed, and with few teams looking to come into participate in WRC, he does not have many options.
Also, there is very little chance of Petter winning WRC as again, Sebastian Loeb is looking strong.
________________________________________

sorry bro, but i do not agree at all. petter solberg is a professional. and if you watch him driving, even in 2008, he still has the desire, and the never say die attitude. sadly, the subarus of the last 3 years has been extremely uncompetitive.

Also, he still has the strongest brand value of any driver in the world rally championship, even today. Loeb may be champion, but solberg is more marketable. merchandise sales attributed to solbergs name is a USD20 million business a year.

It would be very naive to think that he will throw away his reputation if he didnt think there was a chance to win.

i dont have any hard facts on protons overseas markets. but if they are as bad as topgunthang says, wouldnt they have closed shop by now? and how is it possible that proton is still launching cars overseas.. and also how is it possible that the thai market is doing well for them? are all the news we read scams, are people in thailand forced (at gunpoint?) or conned by maybe david blaine into buying a proton?

whatever it is, I believe if petter solberg is willing to talk to proton, he must see something that we cannot see. As i’m no former world rally champion, or someone with a multimillion dollar brand value on my forehead, i’m not gonna doubt him.

Sex is wonderful, but it's like champagne.If you're forced to have four glasses at every meal you start to fantasize about water. (Member)
on Jan 21, 2009
at 9:39 pm

Jaybond said,

January 21, 2009 @ 4:53 pm

Poor Solberg, from a World Champ to a Proton driver…

Subaru just can’t give a better car, the 2000s WRC era is just dominated by the Frenchies & Brits, era of the active diffs.
——————-
there should be like a super wrc , like motogp, got superbike. then we will see again skoda, peugeot, lancia etc

Dude, if you were to spend millions of ringgit to market your brand globally, who would you choose? A Malaysian Rally Driver who might be known in the Asian rally scene or a World Champion whose name is synonym to rallying?

You can either post as a guest or have an option to register. Among the advantages of registering is once a name has been registered, a guest cannot post using that name. If you have an account, please login before commenting. If you wish to have a profile photo next to your name, register at Gravatar using the same e-mail address you use to comment.